“I suggested we bring lunch to him and dine out al fresco on Robyn’s patio. By then, I was wise to him and headed him off at the pass before he raised objections about sitting down to chat over lunch with paint fumes and hammering going on around us. He hemmed and hawed before agreeing to do it. I can make potato salad if you can bring sandwiches.”
“How about chicken, with bow-tie pasta, a pasta casserole, or sesame noodles? Deviled eggs would be good, too. He’s not a vegetarian or lactose intolerant or anything like that, is he?”
“The old carnivore eats like a horse. As far as I can recall that includes anything you put in front of him. In fact, what finally won him over was my argument that he had to eat. If he couldn’t go out for lunch, why not let us bring lunch to him? He’s a sucker for potato salad and I’m not ashamed to say I offered it as a covert attempt at bribery. All your suggestions are wonderful. I’ll also pack plates and eating utensils, a table cloth for outdoors—all the things we’ll need like that including a bottle of George’s favorite white wine.”
“We should bring enough to feed Robyn and Neely, too.”
“That’s fine, although I’d rather interrogate George without Robyn sitting there. I don’t want him worrying that what he tells us will contradict what he’s already told Robyn. Not that I believe he’s regarded her as of much consequence until this latest incident. If it isn’t too stinky or noisy, we can set up lunch for them in the study area. Neely might prefer that if she’s hard at work on her laptop digging into the history of the old house and the De Voss family. We’ll make it work.”
“Did you agree on a time?”
“Two, which is later than I normally eat lunch, but I would have said yes to any time he suggested. I’m determined to corner this guy and ask him a few pointed questions about the cottage. He knows more about what’s going on there than he’s willing to say. It wouldn’t surprise me, in fact, if he’s up to no good.”
“Up to no good, how?” I asked even though I’d had almost the same thoughts about him.
“Hank is no dummy, but neither am I. You don’t have to read through the lines too deeply to see that the police are more than a little interested in George Pierson. What if the dirt snoop in George has discovered the area around the cottage or under it is loaded with a rare mineral? Or more likely, what if all the coming and going in Shakespeare’s Cottage is related to the smuggling and George is covering for it?”
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions about a man I’ve never met, but my mind wandered down the same path last night when I should have been sleeping.”
“Jump all you want. I can’t believe I didn’t catch on to what an unsavory character he is even after Princess tried to warn me. I’ll never doubt her again.”
“They would have made lots more noise than they already have if they were storing smuggled goods in Robyn’s garage or attic crawl space, and then sending someone to haul them away later.”
“I hear you, Miriam. If they were using her garage to hide smuggled loot, why would Shakespeare’s ghost, or anyone else, bother to go into the house at all? You have access to the attic from out there, too. Besides, you’re right she’s never said a word about hearing footsteps overhead.”
“If they’re passing each other little notes by hiding them in books or behind paintings in the cottage, why go to so much trouble?” I asked. “That can’t be it, either.”
“Good grief, I agree. Stick the note under a potted plant on the porch and ditch the Shakespeare’s ghost getup! Or leave the notes at the public library.”
“Okay, bye for now. I’m going to call Neely and tell her about lunch.” As I said that, I was already examining the contents of my pantry to see what I had on hand to fix for an al fresco lunch for five.
“Neely,” I said the moment she picked up the phone.
“Miriam? Is everything okay?”
“So far, but it’s still early.”
“I can tell. I haven’t had coffee yet, but I smell it. That must mean Robyn’s up already. Despite my misgivings that nothing good happens before ten o’clock, we agreed to get to the cottage by nine to see what’s up today.” I heard a crash and then a yelp. “Stubbed my toe, dang it. I left my glasses next to my reading chair where I was working on my laptop. That’ll teach me not to put them next to the bed. I’m blind as a bat. What’s up?”
“Marty and I wanted to talk to you about lunch.” I filled her in quickly about the arrangements we’d made with George Pierson and our preference to question him without Robyn being at that table.
“That makes sense. He’s not above contradicting himself, that’s for sure. If she isn’t sitting there to correct him, I doubt he’ll worry about it.”
“Marty’s concerned that he’s deceitful—says yes, does no—although she didn’t realize that when they were dating.”
“Scheherazade didn’t miss it, did she? That cat has an attitude, but she might be on to something when it comes to George Pierson.” I’d already reconsidered my opinion of the cat after seeing how she’d taken a shine to Hank. I suddenly felt uncomfortable about how much Scheherazade disliked George Pierson.
“I wonder what George did to Scheherazade to make her dislike him so much that she hisses at the mere mention of his name.”
“Neely!” I heard a voice say after what sounded like a rap on the door.
“Uh, oh, Mom’s hollering. Hang on.”
“I’m up,” Neely said as she opened the door to her room. “I’ve got Miriam on the phone planning what to bring us for lunch at your cottage if we’re still there at two.”
“Please tell Miriam thanks. I hope we’ll be out of there by then, but you never can tell. Breakfast is ready in two minutes—eggs and toast, but no grits. Those were dumped on the floor in my pantry and I don’t see any in your.” I made a mental note to take deviled eggs off the list of my lunch options.
“Mm, I smell bacon, too. I’ll be right there.” The door clicked shut.
“It’s not always bad to share your digs with someone else, is it? If you all keep feeding me, though, I’m going to lose my girlish figure.” Neely cackled at her joke. I was about to say goodbye when I wondered about what she’d said earlier.
“What did George say to contradict himself?” I asked.
“Several small things. When George was speaking to the painters over the phone, he told them the house was twenty-eight hundred square feet in size. Robyn says she reminded him that the realtor claims it’s twenty-one hundred square feet. He’d also used the smaller number before. He was contracting for touch up work not a whole house paint job, so it didn’t matter. It’s a big difference in size, isn’t it? Hank told Robyn that George couldn’t seem to come up with the same story twice about her reports of incidents at the cottage. When we got home last night, I asked her to sit down and recount as many incidents as she could and attach the dates. That didn’t take long. Apparently, Robyn’s been keeping a ghost diary.”
“She has a log of events?”
“Yep! In her case, Shakespeare should have written something about yesterday, and yesterday, and yesterday, huh?”
“Did she give a copy to Hank?”
“I don’t think so, but I can ask her.”
“Tell Charly about it and ask her what we should do about it. I wonder if those dates will mean anything to Hank, and the other investigators tracking the movement of the smugglers.”
“Maybe, they ought to be taking a closer look at the owners of the cottage, too. It wouldn’t be the first time a member of the De Voss family was involved in smuggling. In fact, it appears to be an old family tradition, along with the curse and ghost stories.”
“What does that mean, Neely?”
9 Eat and Drink as Friends
“And do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.” – Taming of the Shrew
∞
“I found several more sources that referred to the De Voss family’s involvement in rum-running in t
he South Bay area during prohibition. That activity was centered around LA and San Diego even though the family already owned Seaview Bluffs Manor. They paid a price for their misdeeds, although they were notoriously brutal in defense of their dirty work. In the 1920s, during Prohibition, two of Rupert and Hilda’s adult sons drowned when their boat, loaded with liquor they were bringing into the country from Mexico, sank.”
“Two more gruesome deaths. At least they didn’t die at home, but I can understand how there was so much talk about a curse and restless spirits.”
“The family’s past has come back to haunt them. When Frederick De Voss ran for mayor of Duneville Down right before the end of World War II, he was skewered in the local press. They claimed the money he was using to bankroll his campaign came from bootlegging and other illicit activities. That put a damper on his political aspirations, but they ended for good when he was killed a few months later in a hail of bullets.”
“That’s straight out of a gangster movie!” I exclaimed.
“It sure was. Freddie De Voss was gunned down as he climbed into his limo parked in front of his house. That wasn’t more than a few days after he’d hosted a wild party that included Hollywood celebrities, writers, artists, a few bankers, and, supposedly, a couple of bigwigs tied to organized crime.”
“Cavorting with members of the mob must have added fuel to the fire for anyone claiming the De Voss family’s wealth came from illegal activities.”
“You can say that again, Miriam. The scuttlebutt was that Freddie paid for an old score he’d attempted to settle by wining and dining mob members. His murder also set off a round of gossip about the return of the Hempstead Towers curse. It wasn’t the deceased Hempsteads, but poor Freddie’s ghost locals reported wandering on the bluff or down below on the beach.”
“Robyn doesn’t know about any of this, does she?” As if on cue, I heard Robyn calling Neely’s name again.
“I’m on my way, Robyn!” Neely shouted before answering my question.
“No, she doesn’t, and I intend to keep it that way for now. She’s jumpy enough already. Last night before she went to bed, she shut all the blinds, checked all the locks on the doors, and asked me two or three times if I’d set the alarm. I’m not sure what scares her most, now, ghosts or real people.”
“If George Pierson or someone else had done something six months ago, she might be in better shape. She’s never going back to that cottage unless we solve this mystery. I’ll help her break the lease if it comes to that. In another week or so, I’ll also take her to look at the cottages that are for sale.”
“That should get her refocused. She needs to be thinking more about tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Someone’s going to snap up her condo in Fresno any minute now and she ought to have a plan in place.”
“It occurred to me last night that she might be able to work out a rent-to-own deal with someone eager to sell. All the money she pays for rent could go toward the purchase of her home.”
“Wouldn’t that be great not to put more money into a place that’s not hers?”
“And that she has to share with Shakespeare and who knows who else? Let’s see what Midge has to say about the realtor who’s taken Greta Bishop’s place.”
“Okay, see you at two—where we’ll ‘strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.’ Shakespeare was full of great ideas, wasn’t he?”
“It sounds good. Let’s see how well it works.”
The morning flew by as I did my usual chores, made a cheesy, ziti pasta casserole for lunch, and baked cookies. I planned to make good on that promise to Hank. If potato salad worked as a covert bribe with George Pierson, why not cookies, too?
While the cookies baked, I engaged in a little arm chair snooping. I pored over every bit of information I could find about Shakespeare’s Cottage. I wanted to arm myself with as much background as I could uncover before facing the man who markets and manages the place on behalf of the current owners.
The parcel of land and the cottage on it were exempt from any and all assessments levied on Seaview Bluff Manor or any subsequent property built in its place. The developers of the Seaview Cottages Active Adult Community had also agreed to pay property tax from the point at which the family sold the property until it was fully developed and completely sold out.
As far as I could tell, that meant the De Voss family got a free ride on taxes for three decades and were still saving thousands each year on assessments. Exactly how much they were saving wasn’t clear. Assessments are based on the square footage of the homes built in our community and I’ll be darned if I could get an exact figure for how large Shakespeare’s Cottage is. The disagreement about it was much like the figures being disputed by Robyn and her landlord—ranging from just under three thousand square feet to less than two thousand.
I found old floor plans for the cottages the developers built and none of them came close to the three thousand square foot mark. Homes that big are commonplace now, but in the sixties and seventies, houses half that size were considered roomy. When I tried to find information on the county tax assessor website using the owners’ names, parcel number, and the street address, I had no luck.
I’d worked my way through all the online archived material first, and then switched to a box of file folders and odd-sized manila envelopes. I’d brought these materials home a week or so ago when I’d received the news that the Executive Committee had officially passed the 80-20 rule making me a legal resident of the community at age fifty. I was so relieved I probably would have agreed to scrub all the toilets in the clubhouse for the next year.
Instead, I’d agreed to sort and catalog this stuff—there was more, too, but I’d decided to start with the oldest first. Stopping every few minutes to take cookies out of the oven and put more in, I plowed through stacks of paper including old handbills for community events, faded polaroid photos, menus for holiday celebrations, newspaper clippings, awards given out or received that were probably meant to be on display somewhere, and an opening day announcement.
The items seemed to be organized by year. When I got to 1971, I sucked in my breath when I read the headline on the front page of the Duneville Downs Daily: “A new Tragedy for one of our oldest families.” The article was short. Daniel De Voss, young, hip, good-looking in a seventies sort of way, had died of a drug overdose. Suicide had not been ruled out. In his twenties, the young man was reportedly bereft at the disappearance of his wife, Constance, who friends and family called Cookie.
“What do you think about that, Domino? I haven’t heard of anyone called Cookie in years and in two days, the name pops up twice. Maybe it doesn’t count since it’s George’s dog, and not a family member named Cookie.” Domino jumped up and barked sharply as if she didn’t quite buy that argument. “Okay, I take it back. Dogs count, too! Cookie De Voss was a looker, don’t you agree?” I showed Domino the photo I’d found.
Cookie De Voss looked a lot like Marlo Thomas in That Girl, although Cookie’s make up was more dramatic. Domino stepped forward and looked at the photo, gave the newsprint a sniff and then barked loudly. Usually, I have a hunch or can concoct a way to interpret Domino’s response to my queries, but I was lost. I sniffed the newsprint and that didn’t help. It smelled musty as you might expect for a paper that was half a century old.
Had they ever found Cookie De Voss? If so, where? When? Did she know that her husband had died—maybe at his own hand because she’d gone missing? I was digging through the box of materials hoping I might find answers to my questions. When the timer on the oven pinged, I yelped. Domino yelped in reply. I know when I’m being mocked and laughed at Domino’s silliness and mine.
When I pulled the last batch of cookies out of the oven to cool, I had a sudden inspiration. Marty’s reference to George as an old carnivore suddenly made me rethink about my food as bribery strategy. I double-checked the time.
“It’ll be close, but we can do it, Domino.” I pulled a lovely beef tenderloin from t
he fridge that I’d bought for my contribution to one of our upcoming potlucks. “This isn’t enough for a main dish for seven, but it’ll wow him as an appetizer won’t it?” I hit the button on my stereo system and music poured out around me as I picked up the pace. A little over an hour later, I’d loaded a trolley with my goodies and set off on foot for Shakespeare’s Cottage. Since we were eating outdoors, I didn’t see any reason not to bring Domino along. She was prancing!
When we arrived at the cottage, the place was buzzing with activity. I’d called Marty who agreed to meet me at the side gate and let me into the back yard. She was bubbling like a socialite at a coming out party. I hoped it was an act, but I wasn’t so sure by the way she made over George Pierson. As Marty introduced me to George, a shy, blond cocker spaniel touched noses with Domino. Cookie stepped back for a second until Domino crouched down and then took off. Cookie followed at a prudent distance, but carried a doggie toy with her that she and Domino soon shared.
The yard was enormous and gave me a much better appreciation for the cottage’s ‘footprint.’ The larger estimate of its size had to be the correct one. The view of the golf course and clubhouse made me realize that Shakespeare’s Cottage, while not on a hilltop was situated on an elevated lot.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said trying to sound as though I meant it. George looked nothing like I’d expected. From Marty’s description of him as an old carnivore who’d spent years on oil rigs and in rough terrain searching for mining opportunities, I’d expected him to be a big, burly, muscular man.
Wiry, with a ruddy complexion and sparse reddish hair on top of his head, it was immediately apparent to me George Pierson wasn’t likely to be our Shakespeare impersonator. Not without considerable padding and maybe even lifts in his shoes. Of course, the disguise was intended to deceive, so perhaps it had been made to add weight and height to the person wearing it. Besides, we’d only seen the ghostly mime for a minute or less and at a distance.
The Murder of Shakespeare's Ghost Page 7